[565] Children’s toys,—particularly dolls.
SATIRE IX.
Here’s[566] a Toy to mock an Ape indeed.
Grim-faced Reproof, sparkle with threatening eye!
Bend thy sour brows in my tart poesy!
Avaunt! ye curs, howl in some cloudy mist,
Quake to behold a sharp-fang’d satirist!
O how on tip-toes proudly mounts my muse!
Stalking a loftier gait than satires use.
Methinks some sacred rage warms all my veins,
Making my sprite mount up to higher strains
Than well beseems a rough-tongu’d satire’s part;
But Art curbs Nature, Nature guideth[567] Art. 10
Come down, ye apes, or I will strip you quite,
Baring your bald tails to the people’s sight!
Ye mimic slaves, what, are you perch’d so high?
Down, Jackanapes, from thy feign’d royalty!
What! furr’d with beard—cast in a satin suit,
Judicial Jack? How hast thou got repute
Of a sound censure? O idiot times,
When gaudy monkeys mow o’er spritely rhymes!
O world of fools! when all men’s judgment’s set,
And rests[568] upon some mumping marmoset! 20
Yon Athens’ ape (that can but simp’ringly
Yaul “Auditores humanissimi!”
Bound to some servile imitation,
Can, with much sweat, patch an oration)
Now up he comes, and with his crookèd eye
Presumes to squint on some fair poesy;
And all as thankless as ungrateful Thames,
He slinks away, leaving but reeking steams
Of dungy slime behind. All as ingrate
He useth it as when I satiate 30
My spaniel’s paunch, who straight perfumes the room
With his tail’s filth: so this uncivil groom,
Ill-tutor’d pedant, Mortimer’s[569] numbers
With muck-pit Esculine filth bescumbers.[570]
Now the ape chatters, and is as malcontent
As a bill-patch’d door, whose entrails out have sent
And spewed their tenant.
My soul adores judicial scholarship;
But when to servile imitatorship
Some spruce Athenian pen is prenticèd, 40
’Tis worse than apish. Fie! be not flatterèd
With seeming worth! Fond affectation
Befits an ape, and mumping babion.[571]
O what a tricksy, learnèd, nicking strain
Is this applauded, senseless, modern vein![572]
When late I heard it from sage Mutius’ lips,
How ill, methought, such wanton jigging skips
Beseem’d his graver speech. “Far fly thy fame,
Most, most of me beloved! whose silent name
One letter bounds. Thy true judicial style 50
I ever honour; and, if my love beguile
Not much my hopes, then thy unvalued worth
Shall mount fair place, when apes are turnèd forth.”
I am too mild. Reach me my scourge again;
O yon’s a pen speaks in a learned vein,
Deep, past all sense. Lanthorn and candle-light![573]
Here’s all invisible—all mental sprite!
What hotch-potch gibberidge doth the poet bring?
How strangely speaks, yet sweetly doth he sing?
I once did know a tinkling pewterer, 60
That was the vilest stumbling stutterer
That ever hack’d and hew’d our native tongue,
Yet to the lute if you had heard him sung,
Jesu! how sweet he breath’d! You can apply.
O senseless prose, judicial poesy,
How ill you’re link’d! This affectation,
To speak beyond men’s apprehension,
How apish ’tis, when all in fustian suit
Is cloth’d a huge nothing, all for repute
Of profound knowledge, when profoundness knows 70
There’s naught contain’d but only seeming shows!
Old Jack of Paris-garden, canst thou get
A fair rich suit, though foully run in debt?
Look smug, smell sweet, take up commodities,[574]
Keep whores, fee bawds, belch impious blasphemies,
Wallow along in swaggering disguise,
Snuff up smoke-whiffs, and each morn, ’fore she rise,
Visit thy drab? Canst use a false-cut die
With a clean grace and glib facility?
Canst thunder cannon-oaths, like th’ rattling 80
Of a huge, double, full-charg’d culvering?[575]
Then Jack, troop ’mong our gallants, kiss thy fist,
And call them brothers; say a satirist
Swears they are thine in near affinity,
All cousin-germans, save in villainy;
For (sadly, truth to say) what are they else
But imitators of lewd beastliness?
Far worse than apes; for mow or scratch your pate,
It may be some odd ape will imitate;
But let a youth that hath abused his time 90
In wrongèd travel, in that hotter clime,
Swoop by old Jack, in clothes Italianate,
And I’ll be hang’d if he will imitate
His strange fantastic suit-shapes:
Or let him bring o’er beastly luxuries,
Some hell-devisèd lustful villanies,
Even apes and beasts would blush with native shame,
And think it foul dishonour to their name,
Their beastly name, to imitate such sin
As our lewd youths do boast and glory in. 100
Fie! whither do these monkeys carry me?
Their very names do soil my poesy.
Thou world of marmosets and mumping apes,
Unmask, put off thy feignèd, borrowed shapes!
Why looks neat Curus all so simp’ringly?
Why babblest thou of deep divinity,
And of that sacred testimonial,
Living voluptuous like a bacchanal?
Good hath thy tongue; but thou, rank Puritan,
I’ll make an ape as good a Christian; 110
I’ll force him chatter, turning up his eye,
Look sad, go grave; demure civility
Shall seem to say, “Good brother, sister dear!”
As for the rest, to snort in belly-cheer,[576]
To bite, to gnaw, and boldly intermel
With sacred things, in which thou dost excel,
Unforced he’ll do. O take compassion
Even on your souls! Make not Religion
A bawd to lewdness. Civil Socrates,
Clip not the youth of Alcibiades 120
With unchaste arms. Disguisèd Messaline,
I’ll tear thy mask, and bare thee to the eyn
Of hissing boys, if to the theatres
I find thee once more come for lecherers,
To satiate (nay, to tire) thee with the use
Of weak’ning lust. Ye feigners, leave t’ abuse
Our better thoughts with your hypocrisy;
Or, by the ever-living verity!
I’ll strip you nak’d, and whip you with my rhymes,
Causing your shame to live to after-times. 130
[566] An old proverbial saying.